Favorite Indies, part 4

Happy New Years Eve everyone! I hope you all have a fun and safe evening, we are staying home and not doing much of anything. My daughter is 7 and thinks it is the coolest thing ever to stay up til midnight :). No matter how bad or good your 2012 was, I wish for everyone to have a 2013 that is a million times better.

Lets move right on to those indie brands that I own the most of!

Favorite Indies part 3

We are up to part 3 now, and its being posted as promised! This part features the second brand that I have 9 of, and then the start of the double digits! Lets get right to it!

Favorite Indies part 2

Today I have part 2 that was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I was busy and then too tired to post it! I will have part 3 later on today as well. I want to say first off, some of these pictures are not the greatest. Living in England natural light is limited with most days being crappy, cloudy and dark, so I have to do my best with indoor lighting and it just could not capture this. Lets get to it though shall we?

Favorite Indies

Last night I decided to make a couple end of year posts on who my favorite indie makers are and my favorite indie polishes. I was going to do top 5, and I started making my list. Which then grew to 10, then 15, and I just couldn't narrow it down. There are so many great indie makers out there, and as I have had even the briefest conversations with quite a few of them, I see them as the people behind the brand and that made it so much harder to stick to a top 5. So what I decided to do was list my favorite polish from each brand that I own (and for some tell what my favorite collection was if I have one). I am not putting these in any order other than simply by how many of their polishes I own. I am breaking this down into 8 brands over 4 different posts, for the next 4 days. As I only got into collecting polish really early this year, and indies not long after, these have all been purchased this year even if they were released before that. So lets see what indies I have shall we?

N is for No More

Happy Tuesday! I can't wait for this week to be over, then I'm off for 2 weeks! I have big plans to do lots of swatching and nail art, but we shall see how much I actually get done! I am cutting this one pretty close, as tomorrow starts posting for O, but I have N today. No More by Different Dimension is a polish with a cause, it was a limited edition to support National Domestic Violence Month in October. 50% of the proceeds went to a shelter to help women get out of bad situations. Very good cause, sadly this is no longer available for purchase. This is a purple glitterbomb, and I love purple! I layered 1 coat over 3 coats of Ciate Purple Sherbert. Great glitter coverage, and I can't believe this is the first time I am posting one of Different Dimensions polishes! I am sort of obsessed with everything she makes, and I think I probably own 90% of her store lol. So you will definitely be seeing a lot more from her in the future!

Check out the other ladies, and hopefully I can keep to my plans for my break, cause I am excited about some things I have planned!

ABCs - M

We are up to M now, and today I have Master Chief by Dollish Polish. I am a huge Halo fan, so I immediately needed this polish. And then when she said she wouldn't be able to make anymore of this (as with Looking For My Mr Big), I grabbed 2 at the next restock she did. I love this polish, I'm so glad I got a backup so I dont have to worry about running out! This is a beautiful green holo. This is shown at 2 coats.

Check out the other ladies!

Holiday Challenge Day 1

I'm participating in the Crumpets Nail Tarts Holiday Challenge! Today is Day 1: Snowflakes and Snowfall. I had an image in my head for how this was going to look, needless to say it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. It looks better in the picture than it did in person. I'd considered not posting it, but figured what the hell. I'm still new to stamping, and I ran out of time to try again to fix it, and I don't want to not participate just because I failed. So here we have 3 coats of Sally Hansen In A Flurry, one coat of Pretty and Polished S'no Mans Land on my ring finger, and stamping using Bunny Nails HD05 with Sally Hansen White On. I had hoped S'no Mans Land would be a little more sheer with one coat for what I had envisioned, in my head it lightly covered the nail with the white glitters looking like snowflakes falling in the night sky of In A Flurry. I'm still getting the hang of stamping, so they didn't completely come out how I wanted either. But, I'm not afraid to show my mistakes so here it is!

Here is what the other ladies taking part did! There is some awesome manis here, check them out!

ABC challenge - L

 Today I have for you a post I thought was going to post last week. Scheduling posts never seems to work for me so I give up lol. We are up to L in the ABC challenge, and today I have for you Dollish Polish Looking for My Mister Big. This is a very pretty violet shade with a blue duochrome flash and its also holo! I had wanted this for a while, but as soon as it was announced it was no longer going to be made after supplies ran out I made sure to grab it in her next restock (also bought 2 master Chiefs for the same reason lol). I used 4 coats here, it went on easily and once built up is amazing!

Lets see what everyone else did this week!

K is for Kismets Pajamas

I am still behind in my challenges, and haven't gotten caught up yet, so today I have another swatch beginning with the letter of the week. K is Kismets Pajamas from Whimsical Ideas by Pam. This is a beautiful black base with different size silver and purple glitters. I used 2 coats and it went on easily with no fishing for glitter. Love this color, its amazing!

Check out what the other ladies did!

ABC challenge I & J

 Happy Thursday! So glad tomorrow is Friday. Today I have both I & J for the ABC challenge, I have gotten so busy with things that I completely forgot about this last week. But, both of these go together so its ok :).

For I, I have China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard, the neon green from the summer collection. This is 2 coats, to wear on its own I would probably add a third, but since I was layering 2 was good enough.

Over this, for J, I have 2 coats of Spooky Bones Jake & The Leprechaun. This is a clear base with different sizes and shapes of silver glitter and shreds. It's part of the Are You Afraid of the Dark? collection.

And yes, if you noticed, these pictures were taken at different times. The bottom one was taken over the summer, and the top one was taken last week while swatching Glitzology polishes.

Check out the other ladies taking part!

Glitzology review

Today I have for you some polishes by a new Etsy seller, Glitzology. Stacy is the creative mind behind the brand, and is lovely. When she asked for bloggers who wanted to review her polishes, I jumped at the chance, and she asked which polishes I wanted to review. After looking at everything she had, I had a short list of about half the shop! I was finally able to narrow it down to 6, but couldn't go any further, and left the decision up to her. I was surprised when she sent them all! I expected at most maybe 3 of the 6. So, yes these polishes were provided to me for review, but the opinions will be honest! Lets get to it shall we?

Ozotic Sugar 902

Happy Wednesday! Today was a half day at school for teacher conferences so that means no work for me! And we are out of school until next Tuesday woohoo! Got lots of swatching planned, but first for today I have a brand new to me brand. I will say up front that this polish was provided by Kim from Overall Beauty for review purposes. I will still give an honest review.

So I received Ozotic 902, one of their Sugar polishes. My favorite color is purple, so I was glad to receive the purple one. The formula was good, a little on the thin side but still manageable. FOr the swatches I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Black Out on my index and ring fingers and 2 coats of Sally Hansen White On on the middle and pinkie. I then layered 2 coats of 902 to show the difference you can get out of this polish over the different bases. I much prefer it over the black as it is bolder, but over white it has a very pretty delicate look to it. I had tried swatching this on its own so you could see it, but even after 4 coats it wasn't opaque and just was not showing up in pictures. Definitely a great layering polish.

I am very happy with my first Ozotic, I would like to get a couple more of the Sugar colors and even a couple of the Beam colors, but they are a little pricey for me so they will have to be saved as a treat or something I might use gift money for.

If you have never shopped with Overall Beauty and Kim, check her out. I have had nothing but wonderful customer service from them, and she ships everywhere! Good way to be able to get your hands on some indies and other brands that dont ship international themselves.

*Product was provided free of charge for review purposes, all opinions are still my own

H is for Hoof Wrassle

Todays H is for Rainbow Honeys Hoof Wrassle. Been kinda busy this week so I didn't have a chance to do anything new, and I even had to skip the last Halloween Challenge. Got lots of time off coming up after tomorrow, and I am going to use it to get way ahead in this and the Sat-ART-Day challenges.

So here is Hoof Wrassle (on my longer summer nails before work broke them all off), 2 coats of perfect formula.

Here are the other ladies!

Halloween Challenge - Scary movie

Todays Halloween challenge theme is Influenced by a Scary Movie. I love scary movies, and one of my favorites is Arachnophobia. So that is what I chose for today. Only problem is I just could not get my polish or stamper and plate to work with me no matter what. The spider shows up decent, but the webs are too faint :( I used 1 coat of Sally Hansen Black Out and stamped BM13 with Wet N Wild Bad For Credit Cards.

Check out the other participants!

Sat-ART-Day - Halloween

Todays Sat-ART-Day is Halloween. I totally thought I already had something done for today, then went to make this post and can't find it :(. I have a Girl Scout event today, so I can't do something new, and I am already wearing some Sally Hansen Nail Strips. So today is a fail as I have to just post that, and I even screwed up my index finger :(. So here is my Halloween nail strips. I do like them, but I honestly thought I had a mani done for today. I must have dreamed it!

Here are the other ladies taking part!

Halloween Challenge - Blood/Gore/Spatter

Today is blood/gore/spatter int eh Halloween challenge. This one I think is my favorite one I've done so far, its also the first time I have done anything like this. I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen White On and that spattered Orly Ignite over it. It got a little messy but I like it that way!

 

Check out the other ladies taking part!

 

G is for GlitterDaze!

So this was supposed to get posted yesterday but it failed. So today, you will get 2 posts from me. The second post will go up later today. So for the ABC challenge this week I kinda cheated again, I picked a polish brand that starts with G, GlitterDaze! But, I only did this because I got in the Charmed Halloween collection and couldn't WAIT to try one! I love Charmed, so of course I had to get the whole set! I picked the one that is my favorite in the bottle, Source of All Evil. I will have a proper swatch/review post for them all soon, so we shall see if this one remains my favorite after I have tried them all.

Here is Source of All Evil, 3 coats on its own. I love it!

Here are the other ladies taking part, check them out!

Halloween challenge - Pumpkins

Today is pumpkin day for the Halloween Challenge! I had planned to use stamping plates to do them, but then decided to go freehand. I decided to do jack-o-lanterns instead of plain pumpkins. I used 2 coats of Revlon Marmalade and Kiss Nail Art pen to do the faces. I didn't wait long enough for the base to dry I guess, and the pen was dragging the polish, so you can see it is more dotted on than drawn on. The dots are more noticeable in the picture than they were in person, my daughter loved it so thats good enough for me! :)

Check out the other ladies pumpkins!

Sat-ART-Day - reptiles and frogs

Todays Sat-ART-Day challenge is to do reptiles and frogs. I used my BM15 lizard stamp. I did 3 coats of Dollish Polish Baby Gravy for a nice white sandy beach and A England Dragon for the lizards.

Not happy with it, but as I left it to the last minute it will have to do.

Check out the rest of the awesome ladies taking part!

Halloween Challenge!

Todays Halloween challenge is Things That Go Bump in the Night. I have to admit that I don't remember what colors or plate I used, and right now I can't find my notes :(. I will come back and edit this when I find it! Found it! I used 2 coats of Wet N Wild Silvivor and stamped BM05 with Wet N Wild Everybody Loves Redmond. Heres the pic:

Here are the other ladies taking part!

F is for Fire Hydrants

Today is F in the ABC Challenge, and I chose Fire Hydrants. This was actually going to be my D (for dog prints) but once it was done I didn't think you could see the prints enough so I saved it. I used 2 coats of Wet N Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and stamped with Wet N Wild magnetic Bad For Credit Cards using BM306. I like how it turned out (except my pinkie lol), its one of my better ones! I am having fun using my stamping plates and practicing so hopefully I get better and better!

Check out the other ladies!

Halloween Chalenge, freestyle

Today for the Halloween challenge it is Freestyle. Not much to say about this one, I basically used some of my other Halloween image plates that aren't going to be used for the rest of this challenge lol. I used 2 coats of Revlon Starry Eyed and stamped with Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris and BM13, BM213 and BM305.

Check out what everyone else did!

Sat-ART-Day - 50s

Todays theme is the 50s. I really like this one, I actually had a few ideas this time! I chose to do a poodle skirt. I used 3 coats of Color Club Blushing Rose, stamped BM04 with Sally Hansen White On and used my Kiss nail art paint. Not the most original idea I admit, I have seen this done before, but I wanted something I could do a little bit of freehand with. Here it is:

Definitely not the worst I have ever done, but I do think I should have used either a darker/brighter pink for the base or stamped/free handed with black. The pale pink and white are both just too light, though you can see it better in person.

Here are the rest of the lovely ladies taking part!

Rainbow Honey The Yokai Collection

Today I have a very special post! I have for review for you the brand new Yokai Collection from Rainbow Honey, which goes on sale tomorrow, October 13th! A couple months ago, I along with some other bloggers, were contacted about keeping a secret by Rainbow Honey. I got the email as I was getting into bed and had checked one last time on my phone. I immediately replied that I would love the chance to review the new collection, not knowing anything about what it would be, but sure it would be great. A very excited, sleepless night ensued! lol Then we got an email saying the polishes would be going out and I checked the mail obsessively until I had them in my hands. I have to say, I was not disappointed! So yes, these polishes were provided for free for review purposes, but I will give a completely honest review of them.

The Yokai Collection is based off of Japanese folklore. The Yokai are a class of supernatural monsters. It is a very unique take on all of the different fall/Halloween collections that are coming out. Click the cut to see the pretties!

Halloween Challenge, Witches

Today I have a last minute challenge post, I just got done with this about an hour ago! I don't know how todays slipped through the cracks, I thought I was ahead by a couple weeks on everything, oops! So this wasn't my original plan, but I got new polishes in and just had to use one!

I have 4 coats of Whimsical Ideas by Pam Wicked on 3 fingers (full post for this and the other 2 HalloWhimsies to come soon!), and 2 coats of Wet N Wild SaGreena the Teenage Witch (completely coincidentally! lol) stamped with BM209 and Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris. I had planned to use a witch flying on her broom stamp, but couldnt get it to work properly so I switched so I could get this done!

Check out the other ladies doing the challenge!

E is for Easter

I'm back today with E, which I must say is a failure :( Try as I might, I just could not get the full images to stamp, and then I went and did them so they photographed upside down lol. I didn't have a chance to try to redo them or do something different, so I am stuck using this. I chose to do Easter for E, and I have Easter Bunnies and Easter Bunnies with Easter Eggs. I used 2 coats of Wet N Wild magnetic Bad For Credits Cards as a base, and I stamped with Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris and BM302.

Not happy with this one at all, but I didn't want to skip another day of another challenge!

Here are the other lovely ladies taking part:

Dollish Polish Zombie Flesh

Today is supposed to be zombie day in the Halloween Challenge, but I could not come up with an idea and couldn't get anything to look even remotely like a zombie! So I have decided to skip today, but in keeping with the theme I have Zombie Flesh from Dollish Polish for you!

Zombie Flesh is a sickly green/grey base color with small and medium black hex and tiny green and gold glitters. It is inspired by zombies and The Walking Dead, a show I love and hate at the same time! It looks just like what I would imagine rotting zombie flesh looks like. Here is 3 coats of Zombie Flesh on its own, no top coat:

Hope I don't have to skip any other days in any of the challenges I'm doing, it looks good so far, this one just kicked my butt since I have no zombie stamping plates, or brains, and zero free hand skills lol

Sat-ART-Day presesnts - Tarts!

Today marks the first challenge in the new Sat-ART-Day challenge from Crumpets Nail Tarts! Fittingly, todays theme is tarts. I had such a hard time coming up with any ideas for this, especially since my nail art skills are limited lol. So, here is what I came up with!

Fruit tarts! (sort of lol) I used 2 coats of Orly Glow as my 'pastry colored' base, and stamped the fruit on using BM04 and BM05. The orange is Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, the grapes are China Glaze Grape Pop, the strawberry is Wet N Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and the lemon is Zoya Pippa.

I like the way this turned out, even if it isn't the best interpretation of the theme! I'm really enjoying these challenges I have going on, even if I have no clue what to do for a few of them!

Check out the other fabulous ladies taking part!

Halloween Challenge day 2

Today in the Halloween Challenge is Black Cats, and I have really waited til the last minute to post this! I forgot it was for today, so this is a quick post before bed. Pretty simple mani for this one, I used 2 coats of OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby? and stamped with Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris with BM04 plate, with top coat over it. Not anything too special, but I seem to be improving on my stamping little by little!

Check out what everyone else did!

D is for Dots

 Gonna make this post short and sweet since its already late here. Todays letter is D, and I had a few failed attempts at ideas for this. The only thing I could get to work I decided to save for another letter, so I tried my hand at dotting for the first time. I used 2 coats of China Glaze Exotic Encounter and dotted with Wet N Wild magnetic Bad For Credit Cards.

 

Here are the other ladies taking part!

 

Halloween Challenge day 1

Today is the first day of the second challenge I am taking part in, the Halloween Challenge for Crumpets Nail Tarts FB group. Here is what the challenge is going to be:

There are a couple of the days I have no clue how I am going to come up with something, but I will do my best!

For today, I did candy corn, one of my favorite parts of Fall and Halloween! I love the stuff. I did this using 2 coats of Sally Hansen White on as the base, and then using my Kiss nail art polishes in orange and yellow. I did it all free hand, no tape or anything else to help me get the lines straight, as you can see lol.

So there is my attempt at free hand candy corn! Check out all the other lovely ladies taking part in this challenge: